Internet Shakespeare Editions

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Tom Bishop
Not Peer Reviewed

Pericles, Prince of Tyre (Modern)

Enter Cleon and Dionyza.
Dionyza
Why are you foolish? Can it be undone?
1670Cleon
Oh, Dionyza, such a piece of slaughter
The sun and moon ne'er looked upon.
Dionyza
I think you'll turn a child again.
Cleon
Were I chief lord of all this spacious world
I'd give it to undo the deed. A lady,
Much less in blood than 1675virtue, yet a princess
To equal any single crown o'th'earth
I'th'justice of compare. O villain Leonine,
Whom thou hast poisoned too!
If thou hadst drunk to him, 't'ad been a kindness
Becoming well thy fact. What canst thou say
When noble Pericles shall demand his child?
1680Dionyza
That she is dead. Nurses are not the fates.
To foster is not ever to preserve.
She died at night. I'll say so. Who can cross it?
Unless you play the pious innocent
And, for an honest attribute, cry out
"She died by foul play."
1685Cleon
Oh, go to! Well, well:
Of all the faults beneath the heavens, the gods
Do like this worst.
Dionyza
Be one of those that thinks
The petty wrens of Tharsus will fly hence
And open this to Pericles. I do shame
To think of what a noble strain you are,
And of how co1690ward a spirit.
Cleon
To such proceeding
Who ever but his approbation added,
Though not his prime consent, he did not flow
From honorable courses.
Dionyza
Be it so then.
Yet none does know but you 1695how she came dead;
Nor none can know, Leonine being gone.
She did distain my child, and stood between
Her and her fortunes. None would look on her
But cast their gazes on Marina's face,
Whilst ours was blurted at and held a mawkin
Not worth the time of day. 1700It pierced me through,
And though you call my course unnatural,
You not your child well loving, yet I find
It greets me as an enterprise of kindness
Performed to your sole daughter.
Cleon
Heavens, forgive it!
1705Dionyza
And as for Pericles,
What should he say? We wept after her hearse,
And yet we mourn. Her monument
Is almost finished, and her epitaphs
In glittering golden characters express
A general praise to her, and care in us
At whose expense 'tis done.
1710Cleon
Thou art like the harpy,
Which, to betray, dost with thine angel's face
Seize with thine eagle's talons.
Dionyza
Y'are like one that superstitiously
Do swear to the gods that winter kills 1715the flies;
But yet I know you'll do as I advise.
[Exeunt.]